Nevada may be one of the most geologically diverse mining jurisdictions in the world. Nearly every type of rock known to geologists can be found in the state’s desert landscape.

Nevada has been an important source of many of the world’s most critical base metals including copper, zinc and molybdenum. Today, Nevada leads the country in the production of lithium and, not surprisingly, the Silver State contains a wealth of precious metals, ranking as one of the top 5 global gold producers.

Nevada owes its unique geology and prolific gold production to the complex tectonic history of the northern Great Basin which gave rise to the widespread landscape of fault-dominated mountain ranges and valleys.

It is this geological fortune that has shaped Nevada’s economy from the very beginning: the 1859 discovery of silver and gold at the Comstock Lode that would eventually draw enough miners and prospectors from California and elsewhere to earn its statehood five years later.

Nevada’s gold deposits are primarily found in three major northwest trending belts: the Carlin Trend, the Battle Mountain-Eureka-Cortez Trend, and the Walker Lane Trend. These three trends have given rise to some of the world’s most important gold mining districts. Nevada’s gold endowments are hosted in a variety of deposit types including porphyry and skarn; however the majority of the state’s gold production comes from low-sulphidation epithermal gold and sediment-hosted Carlin-type deposits.